Bring me back to the Light
by toreax
Summary: She cared. She would being him back to the light.


**Warnings: Suicidal thoughts, background on attempted suicide, severe depression, harmful thoughts**

I always wanted to be normal.

If I was normal, I would have parents, live in a suitable house, had more friends. I would be able to walk around with others or just alone. I could go to the store, the park, anywhere. Sure, I was pretty self-conscious now, and I probably would be if I was normal, but that didn't mean I wouldn't be able to do normal stuff.

People could accept my appearance.

I wouldn't have to live underground in a dirty sewer. The only reason I haven't gone crazy is because my youngest brother keeps our spirits up and alive.

If someone found us, took a reliable picture, or even captured us, they would sell us to scientists. The scientists would dissect us or study us then dissect us. Truthfully, it was terrifying, to say the least.

I wasn't sure how many times I had come up here and contemplated his life. The roof was high and the stars flashed brightly in the sky over the blinding lights and sounds of New York. The sight was unsettling, but I came here anyway.

Any time I feel alone, I come here. I come to the tallest building in the Big Apple and just look over the city. Normal kids don't do this, I'm not normal.

I'm not able to live a normal life because of my thick green skin and scales, a protective shell on my back and around my torso. No nose, just a snout. Six fingers, not five, as well as my toes. No ears, there are slits.

Everything is normal in my family's terms, but I don't feel it.

I could never be human.

People only see others from their outside, their appearance. No, I'm not an emotionless animal that eats people, I have feelings and reactions.

But people don't consider us as human because we are six foot giant, walking, talking turtles.

Yes, I'm afraid of being rejected. Not by society. Most humans have showed that they are just as emotionless and uncaring as an animal. I don't want to be rejected by my family.

I'm different from them. I don't use brawn as solutions unless necessary. I use my overly-developed brain. I was never as interested in ninjitsu as my brothers. Raphael was strong, Leonardo was graceful, and Michelangelo was the king of agility. Me, Donatello, I'm just the smart one.

Yeah, I'm fifteen and could probably be working with the best and most wealthy scientists in the world, but I'm stuck in a sewer.

Besides, they would be working on _me._

I always have to work harder than my brothers because I'm not gifted with any of their natural talents. I'm not muscular; I make up for that with my brain. I work problematic solutions and equations to beat an enemy when use my learned skills from my sensei.

But, that doesn't make it an excuse for my brothers to mock me.

No one understands me. I know it sounds childish and annoying, but it's one hundred percent true. The insults and mockery that is thrown in my face every day eats at my stomach. I had been depressed, _severely_, but I'm not going to let my brothers know that. It's just something else for them to rub in. It just another weak point.

_Weak._

_That's me. _

It's obvious that I will be the first to die out of my three brothers. I'm the weak brother, the one who can't take care of himself no matter what.

And for some reason, that fact doesn't bother me.

Being killed. It doesn't make me wince or have that dread feeling. No fear towards it. I welcome death.

It's better than suicide.

But suicide seems like heaven.

I had tried before, even before I had seen the surface. I was thirteen and even at that age I knew that I would die and I would be the one that would hold my brothers back.

I knew I could get them killed.

I didn't even have a fight that night. I had made my mind up. I had decided fully that I was going to kill myself. I was in my room and I had tied the rope securely to the pipe on the ceiling. I had wrapped the rope around my neck and stood on the chair. I wasn't even crying, I prepared everything with a straight face.

Right when I was about to step of the chair to happiness, Michelangelo had knocked softly on my door calling me for dinner.

Sweet, innocent Mikey.

I had almost cried. I knew if I had stepped off that chair at that moment, I wouldn't have answered my brother and he would have come in and found me dead.

I would have killed him even then.

But now I'm fifteen, almost sixteen years old. My family was healthy and we had made human friends; Casey Jones and April O'Neil.

_April O'Neil._

When I had spotted her from that roof the first night we went topside, my heart had almost beat out of my chest. In the first time in years, I had actually felt happiness. I had even felt something more.

She is beautiful; her red hair that matched her personality. She was kind, protective, and had that feel to her that said 'you mess with me, you'll be sorry'.

And then there was the fact that she had actually accepted them.

She had accepted their looks, their personalities. We were green and she didn't care, she just saw us as four normal guys with their normal father. Sure, she had screamed in my face when I saved her, but I almost had a heart attack when I saw myself in the mirror the first time when I was little. We tend to have that effect on people.

Her father, a scientist like me, had been captured, then saved, then mutated by yours truly. April's mood had fallen when she lost her Father twice. Her mother had died and had been experimented on when she was pregnant with her, leaving her a half human, half Kraang alien. That had sent her for a loop.

It had broken my heart when I saw her sad.

Then, I created the retro-mutagen. It was a breakthrough, really. Many scientists, not even Baxter Stockman, could figure out the formula. I had gotten lucky with all the experiments I had tested to get the correct equation. I had gone through sleepless nights, missing meals and trainings to find it and I had done it.

I was happy when I brought back Kirby.

I was happy to see that April was happy with her Father again. I would do anything for her. She was my best friend.

Even though it would swell my heart for her to return my romantic feelings, I could live with her as my friend.

Besides, I couldn't let her fall like I had.

They saw me as the sweet, machine loving Donatello. The naturally nervous nerd that invented and corrected; the turtle that could figure out anything.

Well, I can't figure out anything.

They saw me as the stable Donatello. The one person in the world who would always be there to comfort and make them feel better; the person who wouldn't go crazy; the person who wouldn't succumb to depression and self-harming.

Once again, the stable turtle.

Oh, the irony.

I came up here whenever I had enough of my brothers' insults and "meaningless" teasing. I came here when I was tired of everything; tired of life.

I have scars that I can't deny. I don't hurt myself a lot. I've cut my leg absently and "accidentally" swallowed too many pills that made me a bit dizzy.

But I come here, when I'm just _tired; _when I'm through with life; when I just need a break from everything, even April.

Though I never do anything, I sit here on the roof, shuriken in hand just millimeters above my wrist.

_God, it'd be so easy._

My brothers never suspected anything. They don't ask me how my day has been or why I have dark wrings underneath my eyes. They don't ask me why I was up all night. They just didn't notice I stared at a wall for hours on end. They aren't suspicious. They don't make sure I'm alright.

I'm anything but stable.

Honestly, it could be a matter of time before I finally lose it and kill myself, maybe in front of my brothers.

Maybe in front of April.

I couldn't exactly control it.

I could end it, all of it. I could jump off the roof, but people would find my body and it could cause a threat for my brother's and father's existence. I could just stab myself with the end of my Bo staff. I could just stab and slit my wrist for so many times that it reaches bone.

_It would be so easy…_

But like the other hundred times I have been up here, I still don't do it.

I want to, so badly.

I want to feel my thick, crimson blood trail down my arms and I want to lay on the roof until my body finally floats away into nothingness, into heaven, into Eden.

I want to die.

So, so badly.

They think I'm the innocent turtle.; the brainiac that would never think about suicide. Somehow they assume the reason why I space out is because I think about machines and blueprints.

I think, I dream about dying. I want someone to kill me, but for some reason, I want to kill myself more than another doing the job.

The weakling wants to die…

_Weak._

_Useless._

I was meant to die. I was meant to die by my own hands. Someone else could kill me, but it won't give me satisfaction of knowing that I had finally ended my own life.

_I'm so fucking selfish._

The poor weakling.

The turtle that never stops thinking about his work. The turtle that doesn't care about rude opinions or insults and obscenities thrown at him…

By his own brothers…

_No one would care._

I shifted my weight so my legs dangled a bit more of the roof. I wasn't going to push off. That would cause danger for my family. I just want to see down.

The dark, dirty asphalt. Cars drove by and people walked, completely clueless about the suicidal turtle above them.

_Weak._

_Just die._

"_C'mon Don, show me some of those serious moves! I want to see how bad you will fall!"_

My brothers just won't stop.

They didn't know.

And I'm sure as hell that they didn't care. They _wouldn't _care.

They wouldn't care if I died.

The glass was cold against the back of my ankles as I pressed a bit harder against the window on the building below me. I knew no one was in there. The lights were off and doors were closed for the night. Only guards remained on the first, third and eighth floor.

My existence didn't matter. I had no purpose to live in the world. My brothers could easily fill in the fourth hole were my dead weight would be dragged around.

A humorless bubble of laughter built in the back of my throat and I almost choked before I burst out laughing. The cold, dead sound echoed throughout New York, but still no one looked up to see the creature that sat on the edge, laughing, alone.

I wiped the tears from my eyes from the lack of air. It kind of hurt. It felt wrong when I was laughing about something so serious. I was actually laughing about my death. I was created by an accident. I am an accident.

I looked down to see that my hand had pressed the sharp blade against my wrist. I could feel my pulse underneath my thick skin. My body was reacted by my thoughts and wants without me even knowing. That was just _great._

"Hey Donnie?"

I choked back a startled gasp as the light, feminine voice sounded behind me. I quickly slipped the shuriken into my belt and craned my head backwards to see April walking calmly towards me.

"Hey, April. How'd you get up here?"

She chuckled and plopped down next to me. Her hair was messy and her limbs looked a little worn. She must have come back from training with Master Splinter.

"I'm a ninja in training, remember?" She said with a small smile, looking out to the city in front of us. Her sky blue eyes sparkled beautifully and the bright lights lit up her clear cream colored skin.

"Yeah," I said softly.

She glanced towards me. "I heard you laughing and I thought I come ask you what was so funny."

I played with the bindings on my other wrist that wasn't about to become slit seconds ago. My neck hunched and my back arched as I leaned forward, leaning my elbows on my thighs lazily.

"I was just thinking," I said, trying to sound as casual as I could.

I had to hide how uncomfortable I was being up here with her. I didn't mind her being here, it was that this was the place where I came to think about life. And the fact that I was about to _kill_ myself before she came up behind me. She was getting good at stealth.

There was a long silence that seemed to drag on forever. She shifted away from the edge a bit, but I stayed where I was. I could feel the shuriken in my pocket, feeling as if weighing millions of pounds.

_Weak._

_Useless._

"Did you get a head on the Kraang?"

My head snapped towards her, before relaxing again. I could feel it. "Um, no, not yet."

"Oh." She stated. She sounded almost surprised and I held back that cold feeling that swelled in my chest. I was too caught up in the increasing want to die that I haven't been working much. I should be at home trying to find the next meeting place the Kraang were going to show up at. We needed answers on when they were going to attack the earth again.

_God, I'm so selfish._

I began to stand up, my knees cracking a bit from the lack of movement in hours. I wanted to go home and sit in my bed, maybe not ever wake up. But, I had to find information on the Kraang. I had already failed, might as well fix it now.

"I'm going back to the lair to get a head, then. You coming?" I held out a hand and for a moment, she didn't even move, didn't even respond.

_You're an idiot, Don._

_You should have done it before she came._

"Yeah," She looked up at me and smiled. I put on a smile and could almost feel my cheeks creaking from another fake smile. "I'm coming."

I let go, but her hand tightened on mine and she stopped. I looked back, curious. She was looking at the cement roof thoughtfully. She opened her mouth, then closed it, then opened it again, as if wanting to say something.

Jeez, Don, you made her upset.

_Weak._

"Don…" Her voice was shaky.

A dread started in my stomach and that twist started deep in my gut as sadness overtook me. A new wash of terrible, dark emotions came over me and I suddenly wanted to just jump off that ledge with no recognition.

_Unstable._

I had made her upset. I broke my heart to see her upset. Was she okay? Lonely? Sad?

She cleared her throat. "Donnie…" She started again. Her mouth was set in a straight line, almost hesitant. Her hair moved a bit from the subtle wind and her arms were set straight by each of her sides. I had been studying body language like my brothers and I knew that she was hesitant and almost…scared.

"April," I said, uncertain what she was trying to say. "Are you alright?"

She looked up at me, her eyes glassy. "Yes, I'm fine." She grabbed my other hand and breathed deeply. "But…are _you_ alright?"

For a moment, I stopped breathing. My legs buckled and I landed on my knees, my palms falling to the roof after. I hung my head and stared wide eyed at the ground. My stomach did a flip flop and I felt something good swell in my chest, washing all the dread and sadness away. The wanting to throw myself off the roof and cut my wrist to shreds subsided.

Someone _cared._

_April_ cared.

Someone actually cared about me. Someone actually cared if I died or not, if I committed suicide.

Oh, how long I have waited for someone, anyone to ask me if I was _alright_.

Just those words made me break down.

"No," I said and leaned back, my hands clutching at my chest. A sob crawled into my throat. "No, I'm not alright."

Tears slid from my eyes and my curled into a ball and looked up at her. She had her hands over her mouth in shock, her bright blue eyes wide.

I sniffed. "I-I'm not alright." I said again, almost breathlessly. A weight was lifted off my shoulders.

She un-cupped her hands from her mouth and reached towards me. When she wrapped her small arms around my large frame, I finally cried. I sobbed, all the emotions taking physical form of April.

She cared.

April cared.

She didn't want me to _die_.

All I needed for help was her, my best friend.

I knew that she would lead me back home again, where I didn't think about dying and blood. I can actually enjoy myself. I can be beside her. She would help me.

She would bring me back to the light.

**This was actually fun to write. I mean, not the part where Don wants to die or anything. I think this one-shot was fairly good. Thanks for reading!**


End file.
